I came up with this method a few years ago and I've been winning a few converts over the years. I don't spine as you would with graphite where you find the backbone of the rod. Because bamboo rod are made up with various sections of planed bamboo that are glue together to form the rod the slight variances in planing and gluing can create a vibration in the rod especially the tip section. Bamboo rods normally have 3 sets of flats and to spine bamboo I hold one flat of the rod section about 1/2" from the butt end the rod section (where the ferrule would be) on the edge of a table so it is supporting the whole section at that one point.

I then take the tip of the section and pull it up a bit and release it to vibrate up and down.

I find that after a few seconds as the vibrations slow down instead of it going up and down it will start to go in a circular motion. Not good. Check all the flats this way and you will normally find one set of flats that will always vibrate straight up and down until it stops vibrating altogether. These are the flats that I use to mount the guides and I find it seems to improve the casting performance of the rod.

If your into bamboo rod building give it a try I think you will like the results. So when it comes to bamboo don't look for the spine of the rod look at the vibration instead.

Ken

Interesting Ken. I'm finish planing a rod tonight, so I'll give your method a shot once it is done.

Do you not bother with the butt section?

Thanks!

It's most important to do the tip section but some people do all sections using this method now. You will find the the vibration is much faster and shorter on the butt section but you can still see a difference on different flats.

Ken

PS: a definite must for a 6 ft 1 piece

Talk about timing! I'm in the process of restoring an ancient bamboo rod that I have had for about 40 years. I am going to central Tennessee tomorrow to get the components to finish the job. I was wondering of an effective way to find the spline of the tip. Many thanks- I'll let you know how things turn out. Will need my son to help with any pictures. I'm so old that I'm still fascinated with my slide rule.

I've used Ken's method with 3 rods so far and it works great!

Keep us informed on the project skee3t!

Ken,

I've used this method too and find that it usually shows the same flat (set of flats?) that more traditional methods of finding the spine (spline) do. I have also found that you must be very careful to have the rod section perfectly straight or any method will show you where the rod is crooked.

Harry

Hey Harry I'm glad to here you use this method too. I find that some times you do get lucky I find it does match up with conventional splining methods but sometimes it's total different but I always go with the vibration. How did you learn of this method? Maybe it was from one of my old posts back on Flyshop.com when I used to see your posts on the rod building forum there. Back before it changed to the "about" format.

Ken

I received an nice email from a long time rodbuilder Tony Spezio and he said he's been using this method since the 80's when he read it on a pamphlet on graphite rod building.
So I was glad to hear people have been doing this for a while and I'm not the only one to come up with this method. Anyway Tony is 76 and still into rod building, teaching it and doing articles for Powerfibers so hopefully he will stop by and be a regular contributer to RBF I'm sure we could all learn a lot from him because he's built 79 bamboo rods and about 150 graphite and glass rods.

Ken

Fly1,

Been using the same method for about 15 years or so. Amazing how builders figure out things.
One thing that I did find is how the section is "strummed". I used to use my thumb and concluded that it doesn't work quite as well as a flat object like a ruler. When it slides from a ruler, it tends to go straight whereas every now and them, off my thumb, it slid off sideways.


Don

What would happen if you already have the ferrules? Mine are already on and Im about to start putting it together.

Thanks and take care,

Ingenuous Ken, and so let me take this a step further in my own interest of learning something about the task of spining.

What if a person clamped the butt section to the table at say a distance of 1" not overhanging and then attached a string and a plumbob to the overhanging end? If one then measured the distance the tip dropped precisely and did that on all six sides, would that not indicate where the spine is? Or is opposite to, however one views the question? Seems to me that unless the section is exactly perfect one would see one side being weaker, for what is the purpose to begin with if not to find the weakest or the strongest of the six sides?

Then Ken, or anyone else who is interested, how would that compare to your method and other methods?

You could use that method to find the weakest or strongest side but I'm not interested in that. I just want the smoothest casting rod so I want it to vibrate in one direction only along the rod length not all over the place that can happen if you just look for the strongest side or weakest side. When your on the water the last thing you think about is can I lift the line better now or fight a fish better, no you think man that's a nice casting rod. So it's up to you to decide which is more important.

Ken

I have the same question that Dallas has. I'm getting ready to refurbish an old banty and it already has the ferrule on it. Can you use your method on a ferruled section? If so how would you hold it down.

Also, after you have found the "up and down" vibration, which side do you put the guides on-top or bottom?

Thanks
Dave

I am making my first post here. I've built some graphite rods and am just getting started with bamboo. It seems to me that both of these approaches are just different paths to the same result. If a hex rod section vibrates without the circular motion, that says the optimum balance has been found between the four strips on the sides. The largest imbalance will be between the top and bottom strips since these only affect the up-down motion. Finding the weakest-to-strongest imbalance between the flats does the same thing. The key thing is that you want a method that keeps the optimum balance side-to-side so that the rod will not have a directional bias.

Two cents from a newby... Ted

I see your point Ken. I was assuming that the only thing you would be looking for is deciding which direction would be the strongest but you are also interested in what the vibration indicates to you. And as for deciding whether to lift the line or fight the fish, I was assuming that it was a choice of whether you wanted more power forward for casting or more power against the bend the fish puts in the rod. (sorry for the amateurish way of stating it) However, now I'm wondering if my proposed method would give you a different result or the same result from your method. Curious thing too that's maybe worth pondering and that's, if one direction is the strongest then is the opposite direction the weakest?

And now that I'm back on this topic, I will just say that I emailed Milward and got an explanation on spline placement. Fwiw, he maintains that the natural rotational placement used by Garrison is the worst way of doing it. He takes the splines and distributes them so that neighbours become opposite. For example, if you split them out and number them in order you will have 1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9. and so on up to say 24. You would then rearrange them for example in an order of 1,7,21,2,8,22 , which is placing adjacent strips opposite.

Overkill or perfection? I'm not the one to say but it becomes apparent to me that if you have a weak area in the culm which is in the area of strips 1 and 2 then you will be placing two weak strips opposite each other. That doesn't sound like the most desirable either.

I understand that many have no interest in the least on where the strips are placed, as opposed to the other extreme. Hmmmmmmm? Just throwing around ideas for interest sake now.